Batabi Lebu Makha

the Bengali hot-weather bowl: pomelo mashed by hand with mustard paste, green chilli, and black salt, sharp enough to wake a table flat with heat

Origin: West Bengal, India

From the journey of Pomelo.

Batabi lebu is the Bengali name for the pomelo and makha means mashed or worked by hand, which is both the method and the name of a whole category of Bengali preparations. Things are makha when they are combined by hand rather than cooked: rice with ghee, potatoes with mustard oil, and fruit with salt and chilli. The fruit arrives in Bengal in the hot months before the monsoon breaks, and its role is understood as cooling. That is not merely a matter of temperature: the combination of a watery fruit, a good deal of salt, and enough chilli to make the mouth water is a fairly efficient way of encouraging someone to drink and to replace what they have sweated out, and much of the hot-weather food of the subcontinent works on that principle. What distinguishes the Bengali version from the Assamese is mustard in two forms. Raw mustard oil goes in as it does in Assam, but Bengali cooking also uses mustard as a paste, kasundi or freshly ground seed, which brings a different and more sustained pungency. Bengal's attachment to mustard in every register, as oil, as seed, as paste, and as fermented condiment, is the single clearest marker of its cooking, and this small dish carries three of the four.

Ingredients

Salad

  • 1 large pomelo (batabi lebu), ripe

Dressing

  • 2 tbsp raw mustard oil, cold-pressed
  • 1 tsp kasundi, or 1 tsp mustard seeds ground to a paste with a little water
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 0.5 tsp black salt (bit noon)
  • 3 whole green chillies, slit and finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp jaggery or sugar, to taste
  • 1 small red onion, finely chopped (optional)

To finish

  • 1 handful coriander leaves, chopped

Method

  1. Quarter the pomelo rind from top to bottom, pull away the rind and pith, separate the segments, and strip every trace of membrane.
  2. If using whole mustard seeds, grind them to a smooth paste with a splash of water and a pinch of salt, and let the paste stand for ten minutes.
  3. Break the flesh into a wide bowl with your fingers, keeping the clusters of juice sacs as intact as you can.
  4. Add both salts, the mustard paste, the chillies, the jaggery, and the raw mustard oil, and work everything through with your fingers for a minute.
  5. Taste and balance: it should be sharp, salty, hot, and only faintly sweet. Scatter with coriander and the onion if using, and serve at room temperature.

Notes

Kasundi is the Bengali fermented mustard condiment and is worth seeking out at any Indian grocer, though freshly ground mustard seed is a good substitute. Where culinary mustard oil is unavailable, slake a teaspoon of English mustard powder into a tablespoon of neutral oil. This is eaten as a mid-afternoon dish in the hot months rather than as part of a meal, and it is also served at the end of a Bengali lunch alongside the other sour preparations. Grapefruit works less well, its sacs collapsing under the hand-working. Make and eat within the hour.

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